The Devil's Horn (29 page)

Wally got to his feet. Time had run out. He did not rush at Neels but walked.

Neels watched him come for two, three strides. Slowly, but fast enough, Neels gathered the rifle off the ground and leveled it at his waist. At this range, with an automatic weapon, there was no need to aim. Just fire.

Wally didn’t stop.

Neels shook his head, not at Wally but elsewhere.

LB shot to his feet.

“Alright.”

He snatched the radio from his vest. LB held it out like a lantern against the dark gun and Neels’s shadow under Wally’s boots.

“Here, take it. Go.”

Neels’s gun and the prospect of dying in front of it did not stop Wally. LB’s words did. Wally reeled to a halt.

“What?”

“Let him have it.”

“No.”

LB stood, still holding out the radio.

“I’m not letting you die today.”

As if another bullet had struck him, Wally winced, then staggered.

“That’s not your call.”

“I’m making it anyway.”

“And Karskie? The women? You making it for them?”

“This isn’t our country. It isn’t our fight. Like he said.”

Wally shot his good arm at Neels.

“Like he said?
Him
? He’s out of his fucking mind.”

“I can hear you, Captain.”

Wally spun on Neels.

“You are. You know that?”

“I don’t rule it out. It changes nothing. Sergeant, the radio. And the code.”

Wally pivoted between the two, off balance.

“No.”

LB approached Wally, coming close enough to whisper.

“It’s our missile. We’ve got orders to blow it up. Let’s do it and go home. Okay?”

Without his sunglasses, Wally’s eyes questioned, confounded.

“Go home?”

“Yeah. Home. To Torres. To your life.”

Wally gazed down at the radio in LB’s mitt. When he raised his face, he seemed dazed.

“This is my life.”

His voice cracked, as if those were the last words he would ever speak to LB, as if he were speaking from a deathbed.

Wally sat where he stood. He cradled his wounded arm, the pain welling up.

LB would have taken a bullet for Wally over their dozen years of bickering, competing, and quiet admiration at any time. But this was not that day. To save Wally under the unblinking sun of Mozambique, today LB would take shame instead.

Neels followed him with the rifle as LB handed over the radio. Behind him, Promise came to Wally’s side.

“The missile’s in the blockhouse at the end of the main road. It’s in the basement, so get close.”

“The code?”

“Five-four-three-one-zero.”

“Back away now.”

LB retreated several steps. Neels got to his feet, keeping his weapon trained on LB.

“Promise will lead you back across the border.”

LB spit in the dirt that had soaked up Wally’s blood. And Wophule’s blood, and soon Karskie’s and the women’s, Juma’s and Lush Life’s, the blood of poachers and rhinos. Tragedy flocked to Neels like flies.

“Hey. Pielkop.”

The old ranger appeared light-headed. He ignored LB’s curse.

“Sergeant.”

“Make sure I never lay eyes on you again.”

“Bluster, Sergeant. And my advice to you. Leave the bush as quickly as you can. You don’t fit. This is a place for Promise and Juma and me. For lions and jackals. For killers. There is no mercy. Nothing is rescued here. Go home.”

Neels tucked the radio inside his belt. He backed away behind his rifle, with the other gun strapped across his back. At the rim of the ravine, before he turned to face Macandezulo, he called to LB.

“Don’t follow me.”

Neels walked away along the creek bed.

Then he stumbled.

Chapter 35

Neels lay in the red dust. He’d rolled onto his rear, pointing his rifle back at the Americans should they try to take advantage now. After frantic and scrabbling moments, he lay still. Only his head bobbed up and down, on guard and exposed.

Promise stepped to LB.

“Give me water.”

The sergeant started to speak, stopped, and began again.

“What? For him?”

Neels, in his khakis, could have been a shrub low to the ground. He could have been a rock. But left to lie in the open like that, in the beating sun without mercy just as he’d said, the buzzards would know within hours that he was flesh and dead.

“Yes. For him. Is that who you are now? Will you let him die, too, to solve your problems?”

The wounded, sitting captain unclipped his canteen. He handed it up to Promise without looking at her.

Promise snagged the water. She cupped LB’s elbow.

“Take care of Neels. Wait here.”

LB reversed the grip, laying his hand inside her arm.

“Whoa, whoa. What are you doing?”

“I’m a tracker. I follow trails.”

She shifted out of LB’s hand, away from his reach.

“I pray you find yours. Follow it.”

She had nothing to say to the captain, did not know him save for his courage. Promise jogged away.

Neels tried to sit up at the sound of her boots. The rifle had flagged between his legs, and he could not raise it. He managed only to come to his elbows. She slowed to approach him at a walk. Already Neels looked like a corpse, linen white and puffy.

“Stay where you are, girl.”

He tried to muster some threat in his voice, but his hands were empty. Promise showed the canteen. She eased beside him and knelt, soothing.

“Where is your hat, Neels?”

“In my back pocket.”

“Let me get it out.”

Promise plucked the crushed cloth hat from beneath him. She poured water over it and screwed it onto his simmering pate.

“Drink.”

Neels worked to free one arm off the ground to take the canteen. She helped him hold it to his lips; he guzzled, spilling too much. Promise took the canteen away. She closed it and laid it in his lap.

“You won’t make it.”

“Yes, I will.”

“You’ll faint, or you’ll get caught.”

“What do you want, Promise? Why not let me die? You’ll be free.”

Promise glanced back to LB standing at the rim of the ravine, watching. The Americans knew what she’d done. Even without them, Promise knew. She laughed, a short, mirthless burst she did not explain to Neels. Without all of them, even herself, the bush knew what she’d done.

How could she come home to it? The bull rhino dead, the aardvark dead, Wophule dead, Neels dead, Karskie dead. Where would she be welcome? In Hazy View, in Gogo’s hovel that Promise could not lift her out of? Gogo’s brother dead? Promise was more blighted and stained than she could ever match or wipe away by being sorry.

“Is there a bounty on Juma?”

Neels attempted to sit straight up, but he was done in by the heat and stayed on his elbows. Droplets from the soaked hat dripped onto his bloodless cheeks.

“No.”

The world in that moment was very large for Promise. If she just walked away, she might live. She knew how to disappear. She could do it even under such a sun, then let the concerns of the Americans perish in the bush with Neels. She could let others die for her and be free.

“Give me the radio.”

Neels clamped a hand over it at his waist.

“No.”

“I’ll do it.”

“You’re a liar and a poacher. You’ll warn Juma.”

“I don’t need the radio for that. And I would have warned him already.”

Promise could snatch it from his belt, but Neels had to give it to her. She needed a promise from him.

“Give it to me. Wait an hour. If you hear nothing, the Americans have another radio. Come do it yourself. Five-four-three-one-zero.”

“I want Juma and Lush Life.”

“Yes.”

Promise opened her palm and waited. An animal could not be forced to trust. It must decide.

“Understand me, girl. You’ve still done what you’ve done.”

“I know. As have you.”

“Why do this?”

“Why do you fight with the air?”

The question gave its own answer. Because they were both trackers who had lost their paths. Promise had found hers again; she could not say it to LB because he would have tried to stop her, but it led one way, one narrow trail to Macandezulo. Where Neels’s path led, only he knew.

Neels tugged out the radio. He laid it in her hand.

“Go.”

“I want something from you.”

“What have I got that you want?”

“Your word.”

Neels chortled at his own body, lying drained and weak in the hot dust of Mozambique.

“I haven’t lost that yet. For what?”

“Swear to me my grandparents will get a house. Swear you’ll help them.”

Neels peered into the shimmering, heated distance.

“Open the water.”

Promise unscrewed the canteen. She held it to Neels’s lips. He shook it off.

“You.”

Promise took a short draft, enough, then closed the cap. Neels extended a hand.

“Help me up.”

She pulled hard to put him on his feet, he was a big man and weak-kneed. Standing, Neels rubbed his damp face. She returned the canteen. He surveyed the way east to the village.

He offered the ranger R-1 on his back.

“Take this.”

“No. Give me your knife.”

Neels bent toward the sheath tucked in his boot but lost a bit of balance. He straightened. Promise took the knife herself.

“LB is a medic.”

“I won’t let the bastard touch me.”

“If that’s your wish.”

Promise did not offer her hand for a shake, Neels would not take it. She took one backward step and instead fixed her gaze on his eyes to bond him. Neels said nothing until she turned away.

“That’s what all this is about? A fokken
house for your grandparents?”

Promise did not stop to answer, on her path, but called across her shoulder.

“Yes.”

Neels raised one open palm, not in farewell but in oath.

“My word.”

Promise left the ravine to dart among the thorny acacias and flowering hedges. She ducked under low branches denuded by drought and dashed from trunk to shrub, waited and listened, scanning for Juma’s guardians on the outskirts. She hurried inside her hour. She needed a third of it to approach Macandezulo unseen.

She stayed careful of the sun and the wind, for Good Luck was a man of the bush, too. But when Promise finally saw him from a distance, he still wore his leopard muti and had his long rifle across his lap in a picnic chair. He sat across from Karskie, doing what he’d been told. Good Luck was not wary, not thinking Promise would keep her vow and come for him.

She slipped into the village, creeping near the hovels. Moving through clutches of weeds, she was a shadow unstaked from the ground. Promise sped and crawled from wall to wall, until she’d maneuvered ten meters behind Good Luck. As she hid behind the last structure, the generator purred loudly enough that Promise could not hear the
shuss
of Neels’s long knife sliding out of its sheath at her waist. She tucked the radio into the small of her back. Promise thanked the old gods, asked for strength and silence, and pressed a finger to her lips. She stepped into the open.

Immediately, Karskie saw her. Keeping the finger to her mouth, she waggled the knife, showing her intent and pleading with him to say and do nothing. The big boy blinked as if Promise had cast chips into his eyes. She stopped sneaking and spread her hands wide:
What are you doing
? Karskie got control of himself, then did something clever and cold-blooded.

He leaned in front of his chair for a water bottle.

“Here.”

Karskie tossed it into Good Luck’s leopard-skin lap. With short strides, Promise tiptoed closer.

Good Luck was slow to take up the bottle. Promise could not see his features, but he was a hateful man, and she pictured his tongue poking out at Karskie for throwing the bottle at him. She stood at arm’s length behind him, ready. Karskie kept his eyes off her, locked on Good Luck. The big boy fidgeted, and to occupy himself, he grabbed another bottle off the ground. He uncapped it and drank, tipping it high. Now Good Luck did the same.

Promise flashed. She reached her empty hand around Good Luck’s head, knocking the bottle aside. Water gushed over his face. Before the shooter could yelp or spit, she clamped her hand tight across his mouth. Widening her stance, Promise plunged Neels’s long blade into the rear of the lawn chair, through the leopard pelt, stabbing with every bit of her strength, which had been enough to down a rhino, and with Wophule’s spirit, which had lingered for this moment. She stopped Good Luck’s mouth, muffled his cries while he strained, flailed, and kicked to leap away from the dagger and Promise’s suffocating hand. She held on and shoved hard. Good Luck coughed bloody water against her palm, exploding against her hand, backward into her face. She leaned close to Good Luck’s shaking, gagging head, bracing against him, but she whispered nothing in his ear that the blade did not say better in his back. The fight in Good Luck lasted long, because he was evil and he had muti. But as he gurgled and faded, Promise twisted the knife so the shooter’s ghost would feel a final pain before it fled.

Karskie did not take his hands from his own mouth, stifling himself, staring in shock, until Good Luck shuddered and went limp.

Promise pulled her wet, crimson hands off him. She walked around to face Good Luck. He’d died with his mouth gaping, like Wophule. Promise threw a handful of dirt onto the dead snake of his tongue.

With his vengeance done, Wophule’s spirit followed his path, away. Promise bid him good-bye and asked forgiveness.

Karskie climbed to his feet, stammering and hissing.

“Holy shit. Promise.”

“They’re waiting for you in the ravine. Go.”

The killing and the corpse, the blood spattered over Promise’s face and the leopard skin, the suddenness of it all baffled Karskie.

“Wait. What?”

Promise tugged the radio from her back.

“I’m going to blow the missile.”

“But I thought the Americans . . .”

Promise placed her hands on Karskie before he could finish. She spun him and pushed to make him leave. Karskie lurched a few steps before he saw that Promise hung back.

“What about you?”

“Ask Neels. He knows.”

Karskie had no idea what to do with his large, soft hands. He offered them to Promise, as if to hold her or carry her away, something unsure but a deed, as if he were a ranger and brave.

“I should stay with you.”

“You’re a good man. Go, right now. Don’t run, walk out of the village. West into the sun. You’ll find the ravine.”

“Promise.”

She turned her back to make Karskie go. She hauled Good Luck out of the lawn chair; the shooter was not a heavy man, lighter without his spirit. His cracked heels dragged in the dust. Promise kept her back to the road, and when she had stashed the body in the weeds behind the blockhouse, Karskie was gone from Macandezulo. She folded the sliced lawn chair and tossed it, the long rifle, and the knife on top of Good Luck. With the water left in the half-drunk bottle, Promise washed the blood off her cheeks and hands.

She walked down the center of the dirt road. The village dozed in the late afternoon. All of Juma’s guards slouched somewhere shady. Juma could be laying with some of his women, or even with Hard Life. The generator prattled behind Promise, insects in the overgrowth sang while hiding.

With the radio in hand, she stopped in the center of Macandezulo. The blockhouse stood thirty meters away, with the missile asleep in its belly. Promise ran her thumb over the face of LB’s radio, and the five numerals that would wake the missile.

She closed her eyes in the street. Promise told the sun on her eyelids and the old gods behind them that she was done. She was grateful to have been brought this far, and if they found her redeemed, she asked them to use the time that might have been hers to watch over the ones she loved. Promise had regrets but did not dwell on them because, truly, no one cared about that but her.

She climbed the steps of a tilting porch, into a pink house with four straight walls.